Understory

Restless story telling swirling around a Thai monk recounting a long life. I found the first half's turbidity of time and perspective most engaging as a way of revealing memory and history of a place transforming from magical mysterious jungle, flowing into a more direct and unceasing narrative of human conflict with the powerful animals of the encroached forest.

Myth, magic, analogy and history entangle in this fascinating Thai story. The telling is relentless, never pausing for the end of a chapter, as all the stories amalgamate into one. Central to this is a Buddhist monk, a story-spinner who lived to be 101 years old. For the first half of the book, many stories interweave, all about characters in the monk's home village, somehow giving context to a century where farming practices and enclosure were normalised in Thailand. The second half is hyper-focussed on a short couple of years where the monk's life was changed irrevocably.

Animals are central to this story, particularly the tiger who is protagonist, antagonist, powerful and helpless. Shape-shifting myths, considerations of wildness and attitudes toward violence all interweave into a narrative that is heartbreaking and beautiful. So much happens in this book it is hard to believe you have not just entered a world, and in the end nothing is revealed. The story, like the tiger, has many stripes and many beings, and hides in plain sight.